Portal: The Book
by Mother of Scoe
Summary: A Book re-telling on one of the greatest games ever invented, Portal. This book is a work in progress, and written in a more dramatic and adventurous light than the game, but remains (mostly) true to the original game. Enjoy!
1. Chapter 1

**Portal**

**One:**

My father used to say bad dreams are the dark side of our mind, coming out for the one chance it can to get a hold of us at our most vulnerable time, during sleep.

Unfortunately for me, this was no dream.

I woke up. My eyes feel heavy still. I try to speak to myself, to get a sense of where I am at the moment, but my throat is dry, and it hurts too much to speak. As I struggle to utter words out of my mouth, I get discouraged and realize it's no use. Going without speaking could be good for me, considering I can't stop talking at home, or with my friends.

I pull myself off the gel bed, and nearly slip and fall. One reason is no one should have to sleep in a bed this small for that long of a time, and secondly, I almost forgot they implanted these new prongs on my legs. Someone told me before I got in the sleeping chamber, that they were to protect me from falling from great heights, should I be in such a perilous place. I didn't like the sound of that, but that's what I signed up for, so complaining won't do any good now.

It's far too late to back out now.

They are rather uncomfortable, but they gave me some pill to ease the pain, so I'm assuming it could be worse, and they're more itchy than anything, and for that I'm grateful. Peppy music is playing into my "Relaxation Chamber", as the guy signing me up called it. I don't understand why music would be fitting at this time, especially peppy music of all, but again, complaining is pointless. The first thing I see is a clock on the other side of the glass walls around me counting down from 60 seconds. There's also one above a wall paneling not made of glass inside my chamber. Nobody told me about a clock, or really anything I'd be doing immediately after waking up, all they told me is that "Everything is for Science." I start to feel kind of paranoid of what is to become of me. Maybe signing up for this job wasn't such the fast and easy way to earn money I had hoped, and convinced my friends I was doing. I look at the radio sitting on a stand a few feet away from my bed. It's stuck on 85.2 FM, a radio station I'm not familiar with, but I'm not a big fan of the radio, or music for that matter anyways. _This is a rather annoying song really, and no harm can possibly done if one radio stops playing music, right? _I threw it against the wall, surprising myself how hard for only just waking up, too. To my discourse, it continues to play.

As I bent down to pick it up and try it's fate again, I saw a chart and a cup sitting on the same table the radio once was. I wanted a glass of water so badly, but someone played a cruel "joke" of leaving me an empty cup. Who leaves an empty cup sitting on a table next to someone who only just woke up from who knows how many hours of sleep? I think that's complaint worthy. I try to gather enough saliva in my dry mouth to simulate drinking a sip of water from this wretched cup, before I throw it furiously across the room.

_I should probably tone down the morning crankiness a bit_. I forget about the poor few seconds I've had so far, and I look at the chart sitting on the table, the only thing remaining in the chamber that I can still throw in a fit of rage. I briefly skim over it noting the company's logo at the top, and ten yellow symbols of stick men in precarious or life threatening situations. Oh, the last one seems to be a slice of cake. Cake sounds good, but it's been much too long since I ate, so thinking about food will only bring more sadness. Over-thinking gets me onto a whole slew of wild thoughts._ I wonder if they'll let me go to the bathroom if I had to. I hope the reward for doing this isn't only cake. Maybe they'll throw me a party at the end of all this_! I would've gone wild, if it weren't for a robotic sounding voice coming on over the speakers when the clock hit forty seconds. That part inside me that still hated the music playing over and over in my head while I slept, and is still on the radio right now, is a little frustrated they couldn't put this introduction voice person on the radio, or at least stopped the music to help me focus on what this robot woman is saying. Crap, now I'm already distracted and missed the first few seconds of what she said. Pretty sure it was just something like, "Hello and welcome to the Aperture Science enrichment center." I'd best be paying more attention now, lest I miss something vital.

She continues to speak. "We hope your brief detention in our Relaxation vault has been a pleasant one."

I force out a chuckle at the situation, and how un-pleasant it's been so far, but that's largely due to my bad attitude.

"Your specimen has been processed and we are now ready to begin the test proper."

Testing huh? I was never good at taking tests, so let's just hope I wasn't tricked into doing some writing test instead of a physical one, but I remember the mechanisms on my legs, and continue to listen.

"Before we start, keep in mind that although fun and learning are the primary goals of all enrichment center activities, serious injuries may occur."

This must be where the chart with the yellow diagrams of stick people getting hurt comes into play. _Looking at the chart again wouldn't hurt._

"For your own safety, and the safety of others, please refrain from touching…" It starts to fizzle and make weird noises, and then all these new and scary thoughts come rushing into my head. _Am I not alone? Will there be other people here with me? What in the world am I not supposed to touch? I hope she wasn't talking about the radio. _I come to my senses and listen up again, holding in my confused emotions.

She says something in Spanish, of which I wish I paid attention to more in High School now that it would come in handy, but then suddenly she returns to normal and says, "Stand back. The portal will open in Three. Two. One." A huge board lit up outside the chambers glass walls that had dual zeros at the top, with a row of marks listed 0-19 under that, and under those, two of the yellow diagrams on the chart, which I'm still holding. Taking a glance at them, I conjure up that one is some sort of cube coming from a chute, or so it looks, and the other is a stick figure under a falling cube. This is surely a warning system for a test chamber of what I should look for. Not bad advice to heed; don't stand under a chute dropping giant cubes from it. The clock inside my relaxation vault and the one outside strike zero, and a portal opens up directly under both of them. I'm amazed at the technology men, women, robots, or robot women can make now. I can't help but stare at them, the portals, for a few seconds. I can see myself in the portal, almost like a mirror, due to the positioning of the two portals, one of them blue, and the other a red-like hue. This is a scary ordeal, and for all I know, this is all a façade. _What if I don't make it out of this portal alive? Maybe the system isn't perfected yet and it could take me to another portal on the other side of the world? _Well. I guess there's only one way to find out. Time to start this test.


	2. Chapter 2

Two

I stepped out.

I did it!

None of my body parts seem to have fizzled away into another dimension, or another portal for that matter. I stand in the larger room that contained my glass vault. Concrete slabs make up the walls and floor. I guess there's nowhere to go but out the door. I'm walking forward, and I take note that there's a camera perched on one of the walls, tracking me. Perhaps someone is looking at me? That doesn't explain the observation room, or so it looks, to the right of the camera on the wall. I look carefully for a few seconds through the glass pane on the wall, but I can't see anyone watching me from there. I guess it's a safe assumption that they decided filming me would be better to watch. I continue forward. Seeing as my vault is peninsular to the room, I walk around it and see the door. There's yet another camera above it, so maybe there's a whole team following my every move. Well, this is slightly uncomfortable. At least the music is out of ear-shot.

I walk through the door, not like I have any other option, and I see in this new room a chute protruding from the ceiling, and a high-tech red button the size of a big tire. This room is considerably smaller then my chamber room, and there's a closed door next to the chute. Leading from the red button to an "X" next to the door, is a series of blue lights in the floor. I don't see anything happening in the room, so I figure the next best thing is to start pushing buttons, right? In my case, I stand on buttons. Once my weight is on it, the blue floor lights turn yellow immediately and the door opens drastically. I can proudly say to myself now that I figured out the first puzzle, or "test", as the robo-lady called it.

I walk to the door, all previous attitude problems eradicated, ready to continue and get this over with, but the door closes, even more suddenly then when it opened. What's the deal? I get back on the button, which luckily maybe 20 feet away, so I don't have to walk far. The door opens back up, as expected, but closes as soon as I step off the button. Seeing that putting something on the button to hold the door open would work, I try to go back to the vault room to get the radio, the clipboard with the cake and stickmen on it, and whatever shards of that mug lying around, but the door I went through a minute ago is now closed too. Great, now I'm trapped in this room with nothing to do but wait for more instructions. Please don't let the nice robot take too long. Sitting down seems fitting, considering I haven't given my newly - outfitted legs a rest since I got out of that bed. I'm waiting by the new door to here some sort of worker come for me, or something to come flying out of the chute.

I doze off for a split second, but I'm startled by a noise. It sounds like, like clanking metal. Still sitting, I put my ear to the door. Maybe it's struggling to open. Just then, the opening of the chute from the ceiling flings open, and a cube drops down, almost crushing me. I decide that sitting isn't the best idea anymore, but at least now I know what that diagram meant with someone getting splattered by a falling cube from a chute. I guess I should've put two and two together long before now, but no harm, no foul Only harm was way to close to getting it's way. I pick up the cube, which is lighter than expected, but still thirty pounds or so. I put it on the button, which is of equal size to the cube, just not equal shape, and to my relief, the door opens, and stays open. The "X" next to the door the now - yellow lights led to turns into a check mark, which puts a smile on my parched face.

Just then, the lady comes on the speakers again.

"Excellent work. Please proceed into the chamber lock after completing each test, and sorry for the slight delay on the cube."

Well, at least she owned up to the mistake.

"Now, note the incandescent particle field across the exit. This Aperture Science Emancipation Grid will vaporize any unauthorized equipment that passes through it - for instance, the Aperture Science Weighted Storage Cube."

So that's the technical term, huh? Think I'll stick to cube.

Just then, before I pass through the particle field and get onto what looks like an elevator, one of the concrete panels in the hallway I'm standing in slides up into the ceiling, and out comes, a drinking fountain.

A drinking fountain!

I've never been so happy to see something in my life. I press the much smaller red button on the side and lo, a beautiful stream of water emerges. It even has a pretty little blue light emitting from the nozzle to illuminate the water as it comes out. I can't get enough of this water, as I've probably drunken more than I ever have in my life at one time. But I'm afraid, I'm afraid it will once again retract into the wall before I'm done with it. So, in my still somewhat sleepy mindset, I quickly pull off the side paneling, looking for a tube, or canister that houses a certain amount of water. I must say, not the brightest idea I've ever had, but neither is signing up for these tests.

Finally, good luck had come upon me though, as a small bottle was sitting at the bottom of the fountain inside of the paneling, where you can't see it unless you pry it open, as I just did. It was probably there for a leak in one of the valves, or hoses. I take the bottle and fill it up with as much water it can possibly hold, which isn't very much, but it will last me a good while, assuming I won't again be thirsty for much longer. Someone was even nice enough to leave a lid to the bottle sitting next to it, so I seal it up and take one last sip of the water, and I walk towards the particle field.

This isn't so bad. First impressions were left lacking, but this is really easy money.

I step through the particle field, and I here a crackling noise. If I could've seen my face, I'm sure it wasn't pretty, Never before has a look of delight been so abruptly turned into fear.

Is something happening to me? Am I gonna be okay? I should've been more cautious, like I was with the portals earlier! Am I not authorized to go through, like the woman said? Then I realize what was happening. My newly-obtained water bottle, the savior to my thirst, was vaporized.

Guess it wasn't authorized.

That was my first thought, but then, I noticed water, for some reason that goes way beyond my education, can't be vaporized as easily as a water bottle. Humans have loads of water in them, and humans have to go through these things, right? The water all of a sudden is splashed onto my arm, and all over my orange pants, now that nothing is there to contain it.

Well, this sucks.

I couldn't think of another phrase that sums up my current thoughts any better. Chaffing is the last thing I want to deal with in this situation. Luckily, it only got non-essential parts of my vibrant-colored pants, nonetheless spilling anything is a real kill-joy. I get on the elevator, or so it looks, and await for it to take me to what I can assume is the next test.

How many tests did that board say there was? Was it nine? Ten would make sense, I can't remember.

I look back at the water fountain, contemplating getting another sip real quick, but I'm afraid what the "Emancipation Grid" will do if I enter it again. Even as I thought about it, the water fountain slowly retracted into the wall, until it stopped.

I forgot to put the panel on the side back on…

Crap, I hope it doesn't cause a problem, it was in that wall pretty tight.

Why is it stopped? It shouldn't have stopped.

That feeling of paranoia keeps hitting me, and harder every time it seems. It then makes some horrid noise of clanking metal, maybe some slipping gears or belts of some sort, and then, is slams into it's wall-slot from whence it came, and the concrete slab shot down from the ceiling, right onto the panel, which is now half- sticking out from under the wall.

There wasn't a camera in that hallway, I'm sure no one noticed what I did, or would even care if I did. It's just a fountain, I kept telling myself.

This company, Aperture Science is much too wealthy to care about a silly water fountain.

I feel like a little kid, wondering how long it'll take for someone to notice who took the last cookie, or in this case, broke the space-age water fountain. When I get overly paranoid, I have the bad habit of getting as small as I possibly can and sitting in a corner, alone. This elevator is cylindrical, though, so corners aren't an option, but sitting there over-thinking everything still is. The door closes, and the elevator begins to rise at dramatic speeds, which I'm not entirely comfortable with, sitting on the floor of it. It reaches where it intended to stop, and it plays a little chime once the door opened.

I get up off my moping butt and forget about my past troubles, at least for now, and continue along the new hallway.


End file.
